On Being Ill

on being unbound from the genial pretence

The Death of Chatterton by Henry Wallis.

Illness reshapes reality. It brings about a kind of silent revolution. Deadlines go unmet. Phone calls go unanswered. Concert tickets are left unscanned. A fever might present itself. Maybe a cough will echo dully through the afternoon. Eyes are underlined by dark circles and fatigue clings to legs and spine like a blanket. You are out of order. Sorry, we are closed.

We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest, tangled, pathless, in each; a snow field where even the print of birds' feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable. But in health the genial pretence must be kept up and the effort renewed—to communicate, to civilise, to share, to cultivate the desert, educate the native, to work by day together and by night to sport. In illness this make-believe ceases.

Virginia Woolf, “On Being Ill”

How does one relearn how to inhabit one’s body? The mind races. It visits foreign places, reignites yet unanswered questions. Illness always brings me a migraine as a side dish. An offer I cannot refuse. The migraine presents me with vivid dreams, some pleasant, some dreary, all strange and extraordinary. Nausea, yes, but also the boundless pull of imagination.

I’ll browse through imaginary bookshops, smell a cheese and onion toastie that will never be eaten, and marvel at the repetitive drum of the coffee machine. I’ll be nearly hit by a bike that jumps a red light and feel elated at the prospect of takeaway pizza from my favourite Italian place. I’ll elbow my way through the crowd and see his face staring right at me from the other end of the room amid the clicking strobe lights. I will sit in a tiny movie theatre on a Sunday morning, umbrella resting on my feet, and watch a film that gives purpose to life in a very peculiar way that does not require explaining. I will roll my eyes at the lady who always jumps the queue at the department store.

I will repeatedly catch glimpses of his face in different corners, never quite sure that it is his face at all and whether that image comes from a reverie or a dream. I will walk in rushed steps under the rain instead of opening an umbrella and see my favourite play three times in a row. I will read philosophical essays in pursuit of some kind of palpable logical truth and fail to understand the more complex theoretical formulations while somehow grasping a more visceral truth that emerges, a desperate plea for happiness and common sense.

I will remember Virginia Woolf’s essay again and again, but every time I do I will also misremember it a little bit, an amalgamation of the essay and my annotated recollections of it, never quite sure what she did say about the thrill that comes with the out-of-order signs we are forced to embrace.

I took one Draught of Life –
I’ll tell you what I paid –
Precisely an existence –
The market price, they said.

They weighed me, Dust by Dust –
They balanced Film with Film,
Then handed me my Being’s worth –
A single Dram of Heaven!

Emily Dickinson

Placed firmly outside the rhythms of daily life, you become estranged from it. That estrangement is the place where everything happens. Social media shrinks back to its real-life, pea-sized dimensions. Work is folded away like clean linen, a life-necessity, but one that must be safely stowed away for take-off. Everyday routine must be placed into a pocket or held securely in your hands. Friends check in and check out and you are left gloriously on your own. That kind of noisy silence allows the mind to revisit the places it truly remembers, the ones that inhabit a blackout zone where only true memories live on, untouched by the gnawings of longing and the acidity of anxiety. I’m transforming, I’m vibrating, I’m glowing, I’m flying. Look at me now.